1.8: Henry Goddard and Calvin Goddard

Interestingly, although not related and separated by an expanse of ocean and more than a half-century, Henry Goddard of the London Bow Street Runners, the precursor of the London Metropolitan Police, and Calvin Goddard, one of the founders and head of the New York Bureau of Forensic Ballistics equally influenced the modern forensic science of ballistics.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Henry Goddard. Courtesy of the National Institute of Justice

Henry Goddard, Principal Officer and investigator with the Bow Street Runners was tasked with the investigation of the murder of Mrs. Maxwell who was shot and killed in her home in Southampton, England, in 1835. Her butler, Joseph Randolph, claimed that burglars had entered the house, and Mrs. Maxwell was shot during a confrontation with the men. It was during this investigation that Henry Goddard conducted the first thorough examination of a bullet, which revealed a visible flaw, which he called a “pimple.” He determined this flaw was created when the bullet was made in a mold from the hole in which the lead was poured. He was able to find the mold amongst the supplies Joseph Randolph had for a hunting rifle he owned and to make comparison between the bullet from the murder to a bullet cast in this mold. He was also able to identify the paper patch that was used to seal the bullet against the powder charge within the barrel. He matched the paper to a torn portion of a newspaper found in the servants’ quarters. With this information, Joseph Randolph was arrested and charged with the murder of Mrs. Maxwell.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Calvin Hooker Goddard. Courtesy of the National Institute of Justice

Calvin Hooker Goddard was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1891 and developed a fascination with firearms. He pursued his education in medicine at Johns Hopkins University and earned his degree in 1915. He joined the United States Army and rose to the rank of Colonel. In 1925, he returned to his interest in firearms and co-founded the New York Bureau of Forensic Ballistics, which he was the head until it dissolved in 1929. In this time, Calvin Goddard worked with Philip O. Gravelle to develop the comparison microscope, which allowed the technician to microscopically examine two bullets side-by-side. In 1927, Calvin Goddard was called to help investigators with the Massachusetts robbery/murder case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists. By using the comparison microscope to analyze bullets from Sacco's revolver and those found at the crime scene, Goddard confirmed that Sacco's gun was used in the robbery. His conclusions were upheld in a re-examination thirty years later. Goddard was also involved in the 1929 investigation following the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. The case revolved around the murder of seven gangsters by men dressed in Chicago police uniforms. It was unclear whether the killers were police officers or rival gang members dressed as police officers. Goddard, working as an independent investigator hired by the foreman of the grand jury, tested the machine guns used by the Chicago police and concluded that they were not used in the murders. Later that year, after a raid on the home of one of Al Capone's hit men, two machine guns were recovered. Goddard tested these weapons and proved that they were used in the murders. Calvin Goddard became the director of the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, which was affiliated with the Northwestern University School of Law near Chicago, and later the laboratory was transferred from the University to the Chicago Police Department. Your author uses a comparison microscope previously operated by the Chicago Police Department from 1947 to 1978, which he hopes that Calvin Goddard once touched, which is quite unlikely to have happened.

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Comparison microscope. Author's collection

Your author recommends additional research into the 1915 Charles Stielow conviction and the efforts of Charles E. Waite and Dr. Max Poser to correct the misjustice caused by the erroneous conclusions of a “ballistics expert.”